


Take these eyes of mine (give me yours)

by diabolos



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Not as dark as the title suggests, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-17 11:58:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8142985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diabolos/pseuds/diabolos
Summary: Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the marvel universe.I've always wanted to try this idea out. This is my first slash fic, so forgive me of terribleness. The idea behind colorblind soul mates is not mine but this story is.





	1. Chapter 1

Bucky Barnes refused to believe that there was anyone more suited to himself than Steve Rogers.

To bad Destiny didn't get that memo.

When he first saw eight year old Steven Grant Rogers, standing in the back of an alley with bloodied knuckles, bruised skin, and gleaming teeth bared for a fight, he immediately knew that was something special about that boy. So he picked up a stick and took to swinging (Toby Miller's tooth cracked and forever made crooked).

'I didn't need no help,' Steve says, 'I had 'em on the ropes.'

'Sure you didn't,' said Bucky, 'Don't mean I got in a fight to save you, punk.'

Their eyes met and the world did not unfold around them. Time did not pause. Bucky Barnes expected the sun to rise a second time but there was no gasping color revealed to him that day. Neither to Steve either. So the story goes that they weren't soulmates. And it was supposed to end there.

_What utter bullshit._

_Steve &Bucky_, their names went hand in hand. Their lives never seperated. Their souls made from the same star. _They're soulmates_ , Bucky thought, _everyone should know._

But the world doesn't work like that. It works like this; your soulmate, your love, your bestfriend, your brother-from-another-mother, your sister-from-another-mister, can only be yours if you see color when they see color. If you haven't met them yet, you can't 'see' at all. To you, and the rest of the world who never met their soulmate, life is plunged in light and dark, and that's no way of living. Bucky met Steve at the age of nine. He didn't see color. They were not soulmates.

Growing up, Bucky hated God and Fate and Destiny and mythology and society and whatever else he could blame because it was so obvious to him. Steve was his soulmate. It was as obvious as the bruises on Steve's face, and the thinness of his skin, and the way his ribs struggled to make more room for the soul that struggled to breathe.

Growing up, Bucky realised that people didn't like knowing what was so obvious. So he took his secrets and tucked it close to his heart but that did't stop him from showing up at Steve's door when he got sick, or when his dad left, or when Sarah Rogers passed. He kept the secret so close to his heart that the words could barely leave his mouth before they choked in his throat. He kept them quiet in his chest, taking them out and cupping it in his hands when he sits alone on the fire escape, cigarette smoke drifting off to better places.

Growing up, Bucky's secret came out in unspoken ways. Bruised knuckles, broken bones, bloodied noses, and dirty clothes all screamed, 'I love you', to the boy he wished could stay. And for a long time his call went unanswered until one day, he saw Steve draw a man unto his likeness, the curve of his jaw and the junt of his brow and the lines in his shoulders read out like a love letter. There was the careful touch of Steve's finger's on his busted blisters. There was the still warm pot of potato soup when he came back home. There was the shivering hands that clasped his own, pressing them to his sternum and let them rest there for the night as Steve breathed through lungs that just couldn't keep sickness out.

The world said they weren't soulmates because they couldn't see color.

_What utter bullshit._


	2. 2

{1942}

"What if they're true?" Bucky asked, his voice carried off as light as the cigarette smoke in the air. Steve's asthma acted up earlier so they're both sitting out here on the fire escape, breathing good old Brooklyn air full of hot garbage, dust, and those special cigarettes the doctors give Steve to help him breathe. Bucky tried one once, tastes just as shitty as a regular Marlboro, only more dry.

 

"It's not," Steve says.

 

"But what if? That'd be the shittiest revelation in the world. You got color, go to war, and it leeches out of you. Can't ever see it again even if you see your darlin`. If you don't got color, go to war, it never comes."

 

"That's the cruelest thing any anti-war propaganda can convince people. You can't just stop seeing color just cause you're on the frontlines. And you can't just never see color cause your resume says you were a soldier," Steve spits.

 

"It's not that I believe it, I just think it'd be interesting. If it were true, people would never start wars to begin with, fearing the leaching of color before your soulmate's dead."

 

"Maybe that's what it's all about," Steve says before flicking the butt of his cigarette to the alley below. "' _ Don't go to war or your soulmate's gonna die.' _ You should really stop listening to those folks, Buck. Bad things follow them. They're like crows. Bad omens." Bucky starts laughing.

 

“Don't matter if I stop listening to them. I hear the girls talk about it. It's the latest gossip.”

 

“And it should stay gossip where it belongs. Not in your mouth and certainly not in my ears.”

 

“What if it's true, Stevie,” Bucky says in earnest, “Would you stop trying to get outta Brooklyn if it were true? If you don't see color but your sweetheart does, how you think she gonna feel all alone?”

 

“It's not gonna happen cause it's not true,” Steve replies, his tone flat and unamused. But Bucky was on a role now.

 

“You gonna break her heart, Stevie? You gonna look her in the eyes and say, ‘I'm not yours,” to her face. Cause if you do I swear to Christ Imma-”

 

“Don't bring no Lord into this!”

 

“-break your nose three ways to ugly that way nobody gonna want Steve Rogers.”

 

“You're a jerk, you know that? No, I won't break her heart. You're more likely to do that.”

 

“I imagine you'd stomp on it then. Bruise it a little. Confessing you can't see color cause of war gotta be a sin.”

 

“Tell that to Old Man Hawthorne.”

 

“I will. After you tell me how you'd expect to live without your colors.” Steve shrugged his bony shoulders before sipping at that dry medicine, smoke curling into the air like some contented fire breather.

 

“I'd imagine it being like any other day. Me blind already from color and the blur of grey everything. And never getting a chance.”

 

“What?” Bucky nearly snapped, only stopping himself mid question. It's just...his tone when he said that last bit, he knew Steve is gonna say something he doesn't like.

 

“You heard me,” Steve said.

 

“No, I don't think I did Steve. Care to repeat that?” Talk like this...well...Bucky was no stranger to the topic. It’s been some months since the last time Buck and Steve crossed words about the subject but years have gone by since the real weight sunk in with him.

 

“You know damn well that I might be able to see color. If Doc says I can barely see as it is, I probably can’t see the face of my sweetheart. She’ll see me and it just won’t click.”

 

“That’s still the most stupidest thing I’ve ever heard fall out of your mouth, and I’ve heard it say some stupid shit before,” Bucky remarked.

 

“You know it’s true.” Steve wasn’t looking at him anymore, just staring off into the alley like he’d rather look at garbage than anything else.

 

“No, you think it’s true. And I think you’re jackass if you believe soulmates can be separated from something as stupid as going without oculars.”

 

“Then what about soulmates that aren’t real?” The statement shocked Bucky into silence. He never thought of Steve’s idea because...it’s near blasphemous. Steve forges ahead talking in a near hysteria, “I mean what if my soulmate isn’t real. That I don’t have one. If I’m like this, I can’t imagine any dame willing to give me a chance. Or that my soulmate is healthy themselves. What if my fate is to just breathe for a few turns and then one winter I’m gone. Nice little clean up of the universe.”

 

“Now hold on-”

 

“So it doesn’t matter if there’s rumors that you go to war and stop seeing color cause to me I might never see it anyways. And I can’t think of a better way to die than at war cause sooner or later it’s gonna get too cold and I won’t wake-”

 

Bucky couldn’t stand these thoughts sprouting out Steve’s mouth, his hysteria catching onto himself and he wanted to silence the doubt and stop Steve from falling down the rabbit hole. So he kissed him.

 

It was a rather stupid kiss planted right on the corner of Steve’s mouth but then Steve moved and-that’s Steve’s lips. It was chaste, awkward, and something Bucky really wished he hadn’t just done on the fire escape in an alley. He drew away and this time it was he who looked away as if garbage was more interesting than other sights around him. At least Steve shut up now.

 

“Did you just-?” Spoke too soon.

 

“Won’t you shut up already on the ‘what if’s’? ‘What if I don’t got a soulmate’? ‘What if I don’t see color’? It don’t matter stupid. Some people never meet their soulmates and they die happy.” Yeah, they die happy cause they fall in love with someone else but Bucky didn’t mention that. He didn’t have too.

 

“Jerk,” Steve says. Bucky had to grin.

  
“Punk.”

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the marvel universe.
> 
> I've always wanted to try this idea out. This is my first slash fic, so forgive me of terribleness. The idea behind colorblind soul mates is not mine but this story is.


End file.
